Payzen

Inspiration

In today’s global economy, businesses, freelancers, and creators regularly work with clients and partners across borders — yet receiving payments after delivering services remains slow, expensive, and unreliable. Traditional financial systems weren’t built for the global digital economy. We set out to create Payzen, a unified payment platform that empowers businesses and creators to receive, manage, and spend their earnings seamlessly using crypto. With Payzen, users can transact globally without worrying about currency conversion, delayed settlements, or high transaction fees — bringing true financial freedom to the modern borderless workforce.

What it does

Payzen is a global payment solution that enables businesses, freelancers, and creators to receive payments from anywhere in the world instantly and securely using USDC on Starknet.

With Payzen, users can create a non-custodial wallet, generate dynamic payment pages for each service, track real-time analytics, and spend their earnings in any currency. Payzen bridges Web3 payments and traditional business workflows, giving users a faster, cheaper, and borderless way to do business globally.

How we built it

We built Payzen using Next.js for the frontend and Cairo smart contracts deployed on Starknet to power fast, low-cost, and secure payments. The frontend, built with Next.js and TypeScript, delivers a smooth experience for creating payment pages, tracking analytics, and managing wallets. On the backend, Cairo contracts handle wallet creation, payment transactions, and fund settlement, leveraging account abstraction for gas-efficient payments. Our analytics module aggregates on-chain transaction data and displays real-time insights through interactive visualizations. This architecture ensures trustless payments, scalability, and interoperability with global business operations.

Challenges we ran into

We faced challenges integrating Cairo smart contracts with the frontend, handling real-time on-chain analytics, and ensuring a simple user experience while managing complex blockchain logic.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud to have built a fully functional MVP that processes real crypto payments on Starknet while maintaining a smooth and intuitive user experience. We successfully connected Cairo smart contracts with a Next.js frontend, creating a modern and responsive dashboard for analytics and wallet management. Most importantly, we built a platform that truly bridges Web3 technology with real-world business needs, making global payments faster, simpler, and more accessible.

What we learned

Through building Payzen, we gained deep insights into designing user-centric blockchain applications that abstract complex Web3 processes. We learned the nuances of Cairo and Starknet, particularly around account abstraction, transaction efficiency, and smart contract integration. We also learned how to merge Web2 design principles with Web3 architecture to deliver a seamless experience for businesses, freelancers, and creators.

What's next for Payzen

Moving forward, we plan to integrate fiat on/off ramps for direct currency withdrawals and expand merchant APIs to enable businesses to accept crypto effortlessly. We aim to implement escrow protections for secure peer-to-peer transactions and launch a mobile app for real-time wallet management. Additionally, we will explore layer-2 optimizations to enhance performance and reduce costs, making Payzen even more scalable and accessible for global users.

Built With

• cairo
• privy
• typescript